Painy

1 hour ago, fleabag said:

Try them all and see which you like

Only wish I could afford to. 😞

Unfortunately the already expensive pastime of trying out loads of different strings is made even more costly when they're flats and again even more so when it's a 5 string. 

I recently bought a Sterling Ray 25CA which I'm liking a lot but I fancy trying it with some flats. 

I want to get a bit of that flatwound thump and punch but without losing too much of the Stingray bite. At the moment I'm thinking of EB Cobalts as they seem the obvious choice to fit the bill but I'm open to other suggestions if anyone has any?

It's been a bit of a nightmare trying to get together in the lead up to Christmas (especially as we both have young kids) so not had a chance to get much further than chatting about it so far to be honest. 

Hoping to get our heads together at some point over the next few days though if we can. If we manage to come up with anything tangible - sketches or what have you - I'll post them up here to see what you guys think. 

7 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Fender Heavy Metal Telecaster bass; comes in several finishes, including sunburst ...

Ooo, mid 1990s me loves that! 

Current me however (fortunately for my bank balance) only loves it up as far as the nut. 

I had a Korean Spector Legend 5 string once that just sounded utterly insipid - literally the most MEH sound ever. It also felt really flimsy like it was made of balsa wood even though it wasn't especially light. 

I also recently bought a Gibson EB13 5 string - one of the stupidly cheap end of line ones from GAK. I really liked the quirky looks and it felt really comfortable to me. It also sounded great - right up until I tried actually playing it with the rest of my band. No matter what I did it just seemed to disappear almost completely in the mix - just hopeless! Fortunately it sold on ebay for more than I'd payed new and I was able to use the money towards getting my Sterling Ray 25CA which I'm now enjoying much more.  😊

Back in 1996 I was asked by some school friends (who had heard that I played bass) if I'd come and have practice with them just for one evening as their normal bass player couldn't make it. 

I impressed them enough that they asked me that to join their fledgling band and agreed between them that they would sack their current bass player as they felt he wasn't really up to the task. We then agreed to get together again the next evening as everyone was keen to have another go ASAP. 

The next day at school, word got back to the other guy that he was about to get the boot but nobody had a chance to speak to him directly. That evening we were setting up in the singer's garage when there was a knock on the door. Turned out to be the other bass player's mum come to tell everyone off for being mean to her son. Of course everyone sheepishly denied that they were planning to sack him and that's how we ended up with 2 bass players for our first half a dozen gigs. 

Unfortunately it sounded pretty dreadful and the guy had all the stage presence of half a house brick and slightly less musical ability so in the end I got fed up and told everyone that if they were too scared of his mum to sack him then I'd do it. 

Later on at a hastily called band meeting at the local play-park and after an awkward 15 minutes going on the swings and down the slide workout saying anything I eventually told him he was out of the band. 

Didn't feel great about it at the time to be fair but 22 years and around 1500 gigs later I'm still with the band and the only bass player so it all worked out in the end. 

3 hours ago, RedVee said:

Nice but you are still short of the trinity as a Sterling doesn't count!

If you read my first post it's my UNholy trinity precisely because of this. The P bass is also a Squier! 

New pickguard now installed and I'm really happy with it! 

I use a Joyo Roll Boost. Cheap and cheerful but built like a tank and gives up to a frankly insane +35dB boost should you for any reason ever want to push the front end of a tube amp to face-melting levels. 

Used at more moderate settings though it's a very nice, clean and transparent boost. 

32 minutes ago, Teebs said:

It was written: "Let thee craft thyself thy bass guitar, and let it be given 4 of thy finest strings no more, no less, for anything other than 4 is an abomination, and leads to deviance from the true path of righteousness"

🙏

Looks like I'm going to Hell then. 😈

After 21 years of playing 5 string basses exclusively (apart from about a year when I used a 6 string a few years back) I don't really see the point in swapping back and forth as there's nothing a 4 string offers me that a 5 doesn't because I'm totally comfortable with my 5 string basses. 

58 minutes ago, owen said:

Is it worth the man himself signing up and joining the thread?

I've already sent him a link so he can view it. Maybe he'll read your suggestion anyway but I'll mention it to him. 😉

39 minutes ago, mybass said:

Looking at the headstock channel, it may be for the truss rod adjustment?

It is indeed.

1 minute ago, owen said:

I have now looked at the pictures. They are yummy. Ergonomics are go! Clearly a bloke who respects wood. An on/off switch would be one thing I would want somewhere. I could live without other things, but not that. I will be VERY interested to see how they develop. Scale lengths are something for him to think about. 

A kill switch is something we've already spoken about actually and he already considered for his guitars and can offer as an option on custom orders so would be easy enough to specify on a bass. 

4 hours ago, Sibob said:

RRP of £1169 😶

Si

Blimey! For that money I think I'd rather just buy for a used DB751 and train our drummer to carry it for me. 

11 minutes ago, Jono Bolton said:

I'd go for no guard, assuming everything looks ok underneath; otherwise, a black guard.

Unfortunately the pickup routing isn't great under there.

Also, the fact that I actually really like oval guard is one of the main reasons I went for the Ray25CA rather than the normal Ray25 or 35 with the teardrop guard. 

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

I would imagine that the guitar designs went through a number of prototypes with varying success until he settled on those design features.

The bass model(s) will need to do the same. I wouldn't expect him to get everything right first go. The most important thing to remember is that despite outward appearances a bass guitar is not simply a normal guitar scaled up. Things that work well on a guitar are not always desirable on a bass and vice-versa.

Plenty of experimentation is going to be required before he come up with a suitable bass guitar design.

Absolutely, hence he's asked me for some input as he's very aware that it's not as simple as sticking a longer neck onto the same body and as a guitarist himself rather than a bass player he was interested to know what the main differences were likely to be from a bass player's view point. 

11 hours ago, itu said:

P: SB body + black plate

J: dark fretboard + black plate

MM: SB body + dark fretboard + black plate

The plate on the P is actually a dark brown tort. 

You can't groove with a pick! 

And sold! 

Up for sale here is my Audio Technica wireless microphone and receiver. 

First of all, the end of one of the antennas on the receiver is missing but this doesn't affect how it works at all. The mic itself also shows external signs of use but again functions perfectly and all this is reflected in the price. 

This is an excellent quality vocal microphone with a great, clear sound - not a cheap mic intended for mobile discos. I gigged this extensively and always got a great sound but as I'm no longer singing in a band where I don't also play bass, I don't need the freedom of a wireless mic anymore. 

Comes in its original case and includes the power supply for the receiver. 

Price includes UK postage. 

Any questions please ask. 

12 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Great bass!!

(not sure I really need to add anything else ) 

Well you could add "and Painy thoroughly deserves it so I shall buy it for him as a gift" if you like. 😉

Typical! If this had come up a couple of weeks earlier I'd have had it like a shot!

To be fair I'm very happy with the Sterling Stingray 25CA that I actually bought but now feeling like I might have been even happier with this if I'd just waited a little longer. 😔

I'd say GLWTS but I'm really hoping that nobody else buys it before I can find the money myself! 😁

21 minutes ago, pete.young said:

There are a couple of things that I think you might need to look at.

The first is the bridge. Intonation and string height are matched to the instrument at the construction stage, so once you've made your initial choice of string, that's it? I don't like the idea of not being able to adjust the action or the intonation. Even with the same brand and gauge of string, you sometimes need to make minor adjustments.The other reason for the design, to allow the strings to 'interact' as much as possible through the shared saddle, is something that I don't believe is going to be desirable for bass either.

The other thing I'd be looking at is the neck profile. It looks like a box with rounded-off corners. Will that work for bass?

Some good points there. 

The lower frequencies of a bass don't interact so well as those on a guitar so individual sadles would certainly seem to make more sense. If that's the case then a non proprietary bridge might be an easier option to also allow for adjustment. If it's a bridge with through body stringing then it would also still maintain the direct transference of vibrations to the body that these wooden guitar bridges are looking to achieve. 

The neck profile is surprisingly comfortable on these guitars but I'm of a similar mind that it's possibly not as well suited for bass. I do personally like a fairly shallow front to back profile but I'm actually thinking an asymmetric profile could be quite nice.